RARE Burt Lancaster Film Noir THE KILLERS (1946) Film Photo Graphic Novel

Description: FILM PICTURE LIBRARY PRESENTS Issue 4: THE KILLERS (1946) A great opportunity to get hold of a copy of a rare comic books. The series was produced for film fans and collectors in a very limited number. It beautifully reproduces (approx. A4) in 64 pages the classic films using over 350 carefully selected high quality film stills and combines them with all the dialogue to produce every scene from these memorable Movies. Re-live your favorite classics over again. A great addition to your collection for years to come. Global shipping available THE KILLERS 1946 Academy Award nominated The Killers (1946), directed by Robert Siodmak, is intense, hard-edged, stylish and considered by many to be the quintessential film noir. It is essentially a heist movie, but the recurring theme is about unrequited love, brutal betrayal and double-cross. It stars two unknown actors – a 32 year old Burt Lancaster, in his film debut, giving one of his best performances as the tough ex-boxer and a 23 year old MGM contract actress Ava Gardner. Her role as the film's duplicitous, strikingly beautiful and unsympathetic femme fatale made Gardner an overnight love goddess and star. Siodmak uses shadows to mask her eyes, giving her an evasive, mysterious quality and effectively keeping her true motivations in question. The first 20 minutes of the film is a close adaptation of Hemingway's 10 page short story and shows the arrival of the two contract killers, Max and Al (William Conrad and Charles McGraw), coming to a small town to kill Ole ‘The Swede’ Andreson (Burt Lancaster). The Swede's co-worker at a gas station warns him, but he seems to have lost the will to live and makes no attempt to flee. Instead he waits passively in his hotel room for his inevitable fate. The rest of the film, concerning life insurance employee Jim Reardon's (Edmond O'Brien) investigation of the murder, is wholly original and largely told in a series of flashbacks. According to Hemingway's biographer, Carlos Baker, The Killers ‘was the first film from any of his works that Ernest could genuinely admire.’ Producer Mark Hellinger paid $36,750 for the screen rights to Hemingway's story, his first independent production. The screenplay was credited to Anthony Vieller but was co-written by John Huston (uncredited because of his contract with Warner Bros.) and Richard Brooks. Lancaster was not his first pick for the part of ‘The Swede’, but Warner Brothers wouldn't lend out actor Wayne Morris for the film. Other actors considered for the part included Van Heflin, Jon Hall, Sonny Tufts, and Edmond O'Brien. Edmond O’Brien was instead cast in the role of the insurance investigator. This post-war, moody, expressionistically-lit black and white film was a big box-office success. It was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Director (Robert Siodmak), Best Editing (Arthur D. Hilton), Best Original Screenplay (Anthony Vieller) and Best Score (Miklos Rozsa), but came away empty-handed. The Killers remains one of the definitive film noir films and, in 2008, was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being ‘culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.’

Price: 9 GBP

Location: Exeter, Devon

End Time: 2024-12-18T17:10:52.000Z

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